Planning a UX recruitment strategy

Starting in February 2009 I took on the role of Acting Head of Information Architecture at Tribal DDB, covering for the previous head who was on paternity leave. During that time I conducted an extended search for and recruited a new mid-level IA and took the initiative to rebrand as the User Experience Department, in recognition of its equal involvement in interaction design, information architecture and persuasive design.

Although we were still a small department of only two permanent staff with periodic augmentation by contractors, with a view to developing the department further I developed a job description matrix to provide clear career progression paths for UX staff as they were hired.

Meanwhile with the arrival of a new Head of Strategy and a mission to extend our activities off as well as online in the direction of service design I created a model of the different skills involved in Experience Design and how they overlap with other UX skills and with other skills outside the department. During the subsequent hiring initiative we used this diagram to target the skillsets required of our candidates, so as to cover the full spectrum with only a small number of staff.